Bells in Texas

It has been a long time since we have posted on our blog, because things have been busy in the Bell household! Here is an update on what we have been up to the last few months:

At the beginning of November, we found out that we are going to be parents for the first time!! We are so excited and cannot wait to welcome our new baby in July 2009. We had a great time over the holidays sharing our news with family and friends. Here is a link to our 12 wk ultrasound we had in January:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVARrD3W9yc



Right after the holidays, Adam accepted a job with the Denton County Clerk's Office. He is the Assistant Department Supervisor of Administration. He has been in his job for 2 weeks and still getting oriented to his new responsibilities, but really likes it so far. I am jealous of his nice private office with a window and the nice new office furniture they let him order (no wonder our property taxes are so high...). Adam has been working hard studying for the Texas Bar Exam, which he will take in February right after he turns the BIG 3-0!



Our final exciting news is that we just bought a house! We close at the end of February, and are so excited to finally feel settled in a place of our own after living in an apartment for the last few months. It will be nice to un-pack all of those boxes that are sitting in our spare bedroom (I can't even remember what is in them anymore) and get settled into our house before our baby arrives. We bought a house in Little Elm, TX although its technically not even within the city limits. (Think: township, fields, cows...yes, we are going to be living somewhat "out in the country"!) However, it's only a 20 minute drive for each of us to our respective workplaces so civilization is within reach :-) However, the area where we bought is being developed incredibly in the next few years as the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex expands more and more. Soon those fields will be replaced with more housing, shopping centers, restaurants, and hopefully a Starbucks (or seven)! We bought a new house that a builder just completed, in a master-planned community. Here is a picture of our house. We'll post more pictures after we move in!

We lost our dog Murphy unexpectedly a couple of weeks ago. We are not sure exactly what happened to him. He was sick to his stomach a couple of times, and then kind of just collapsed on us. We raced him to the Emergency vet clinic, but his heart stopped after he arrived there and they were not able to revive him. It is still bewildering to us that he was absolutely fine earlier that day, but we are happy that he did not suffer long. We're not sure what made him sick--he was on new medication for his allergies but our vet did not believe there was any way it could have caused his death.
He was a GREAT dog, and we miss him so much. Our little abode in Texas is definitely a little lonlier without him! We adopted him through a fantastic organization called RAGOM (Retrieve a Golden of Minnesota); he had previously been living in a puppy mill. We will definitely adopt a rescue dog again-- it was a great experience for us.

Here are a couple of pictures of Murphy, taken just a few days before he died:

Adam's dad had a conference for his company in Frisco, TX this week (the city bordering ours), so we were able to spend some time with him on Sunday after he flew into town. It was so great to be able to see him, even if it was a short visit. The rest of his time in town was spent golfing, sampling some great local restaurants, and maybe even working a little when he had time in between :-)

We hung out at our apartment for a while, and then went to our favorite Tex-Mex restaurant--Mi Cocina. Here are a couple of pictures:

Hi Everyone!! I'm sorry that it has been a while since we have updated our blog. I thought I would give Adam a break, and start contributing! Here are some pictures from a hike we went on a couple of weekends ago. Dallas is not much of a place for outdoor enthusiasts; (not that I am one--but Adam is!) however, we did manage to find a nature preserve that had some pretty good hiking trails.

Starting out on our hike, I freaked out a little when I saw this sign!! If you cannot read it, it says "Poisonous Snake Habitat". Luckily we did not see any snakes, but did see a couple of large spiders (more on that below).



Here is one of those spiders I mentioned. Adam took this picture; this is actually the first time I am seeing it. Great--I finally stopped having nightmares of the cane spiders that spent our honeymoon with us in Maui, and now I have this little bugger to haunt my dreams at night. At least this spider did not chase us like those cane spiders did!!




Here are a couple of pictures of us at the top of an outlook tower--with a great view.








One thing that we definitely don't see hiking in MN is cacti! It was everywhere.



After our 2.5 hour hike in increasing heat, we were pretty tired! We had a picnic and then headed back to lounge by the pool for the rest of the day. That's more like it!!

Here are some pictures of Jessica and I and Murphy at the White Rock Dog Park in mid-August. It is a good size dog park in Dallas and it is one of the only dog parks around so there were quite a few dogs there for Murphy to sniff. The separated the different size dogs into two sections. One fenced off section was for dogs like 30 lbs max. The other section was for all dogs.

We also ran into someone who was also from Minnesota. We were walking by and she saw my Gustavus Football t-shirt. She yelled to us and we walked over and spoke with our Minnesota accents without feeling as embarrassed. She explained that she was from Mankato. It is really amazing how small the world is at times.


We all had a great day. We went fairly early in the morning before the temperature got too warm. Next time we could go even earlier because it got warm pretty quick.

It really was a beautiful day. Murphy got to run around with the other dogs, and got muddy by the well.


We then we went down to the water (White Rock Lake) and watched him cool off. There were a couple of Labs there that loved to fetch sticks and tennis balls. Murphy was a bit scared to go out too far. He also was unsure of his footing. The water was not very clear, and the landing was very rough and rocky.


The funniest part was this little pit bull dog thing trying to drag an entire limb off the shore. He was relentless in his efforts. He did not seem to care that it weighed probably 150-200 lbs dry. He was definitely determined to succeed. His ambition was definitely something to admire.



After the fun down at the shore, we went up to walk a bit on the bridge. The bridge spans the whole width of the lake. The span is quite some distance.

Here is a shot of Jessica and Murphy on the Bridge:

Murphy getting some water to drink before we head home.

Unfortunately, I have done a terrible job of keeping the blog updated. So, instead of going back two months and trying to write every detail of the events, I am just going to do a recap...